Collection essentials #131: Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis)

Gosh, I really like Konami, don’t I?


Here’s another 2D “mascot” platformer, a type of game that was all the rage in the early ‘90s. In this game, you play as a possum named Sparkster. The thing that sets this game apart from other platformers is that Sparkster has a jetpack on his back. If you hold down the attack button, your jetpack charges up, and when you let go…ZOOOOM!! Sparkster shoots forward at a crazy speed, with his sword out to strike any enemy in his way. 


I don’t have a ton to say about Rocket Knight Adventures, I didn’t grow up with it and don’t have any specific great memories to share. I actually wasn’t super keen on it my first time playing as I had what I felt like were cheap deaths, but upon trying again, it really grew on me. The game has good, varied level design and the jetpack provides a very welcome spice to the gameplay. 


This game did start a new series, as you would expect, and Konami wanted to make Sparkster a company mascot. But although there were a couple sequels and some enthusiastic fans, Sparkster kinda faded into obscurity when the next console generation rolled around. This game is still good enough to be one of the essential Genesis games for sure, though!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intro

Image
  I'm about to start a long-term personal project relating to my video game collection. It's actually something I'm doing mostly for myself, but sharing it with others is certainly a nice little side perk. As you probably already know, I have a large video game collection that would make many nerds jealous! I did the bulk of my collecting from roughly 2012-2018. Now I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to. In fact, in 2021 my collection actually had a net shrinkage because I sold more than I bought. Does that mean I've just been a hoarder all this time and I'm slowly growing to regret my life decisions? HECK no. I feel quite satisfied and vindicated with the legion of games into which I've invested time, energy and resources to assemble and I've merely reached a point of satiation. I scratched all the most important stuff from my bucket list. I purposefully was liberal in my choice of buying stuff because I knew how to find deals and I knew that th...
Read more

Collection essentials #106: Tecmo Super Bowl (NES)

Image
Tecmo had previously released “Tecmo Bowl” nearly three years before this game, and while I don’t own it and don’t consider it essential, it was a very good football game for its time. But fans of that game had seen nothing yet. Tecmo Super Bowl provided a major upgrade, and is widely considered the best sports game on the NES, and some would even say one of the best sports video games of all time in general. The first noticeable difference is that Tecmo Super Bowl, unlike the original, got the license to use real NFL teams with their logos, and all the real players, which maybe sounds frivolous to a non-sports fan, but believe me when I say people who like sports enjoy controlling fantasy versions of their favorite teams and athletes much more than generic made-up counterparts! When making a sports video game, there are different ways a developer can go about it. The most obvious path, perhaps, would be to try and make it as realistic and true to the real thing as possible. That’s oft...
Read more

Collection essentials #283: Troddlers (SNES)

Image
Here’s one of the very first games I ever played, the very obscure game Troddlers! There was a home computer released in the 1980s called the Amiga that became quite popular in Europe but didn’t really catch on in North America. There were quite a few video games released for it, the majority of which (if I’m not mistaken) were made by European developers since that’s where the Amiga was popular. Troddlers was one such game, originally developed by the Swedish company Atod for the Amiga. Some Amiga games got ported or remade on home consoles like the SNES, and Troddlers made the jump very effectively with much better audio than its original incarnation. The story of Troddlers involves a couple guys named Hokus and Pokus who work for a sorcerer named Divinius. Hokus and Pokus are quite mischievous, and one day after getting in trouble for playing pranks, Divinius orders them to clean a large storeroom that hasn’t been tidied up for hundreds of years. While down there, they notice a box ...
Read more